PROPOSED MONORAIL SYSTEM
Downtown Monorail
Freeway Monorail
Stations
Increasing Mobility
The Milwaukee Monorail's route would follows Milwaukee's plans closely, with some minor changes. The route is divided into two lines--the mostly north-south Blue Line and the mostly east-west Green Line. Besides the lines and their stations, there is also a maintenance facility at 30th and North and a switch at 4th and Wisconsin to allow vehicles to switch between lines. The Blue Line would be built first, followed by the Green Line. Building the system in phases spreads out the capital costs, and each phase will be working as the next is being built (the reader may find it convenient to open the system map in another window).
Blue Line Description
The Blue Line monorailway would start at the shops and yards at 30th and North. The line would then go down Lisbon Street, where its first station would be located near the intersection with 27th (1). The line would then transfer to Walnut, where stations would be at 17th (2), Twelfth (3), and Sixth Streets (4). The monorail would then turn down Martin Luther King Junior Drive to make a stop at Cherry Street (6), near location of Schlitz Park, and the Park East redevelopment is just across the Milwaukee river. The monorailway would then turn onto McKinley Avenue, another Park East site, where another station would be located, potentially within one of the new buildings (6). The line would turn onto Fourth Street, where it would stop at Highland (7), providing access to the Bradley Center, Wisconsin Center, Old World Third Street, and MATC, and Wisconsin (8) (this line would necessitate the raising of some elevated walkways, known as skyways, but this would be relatively inexpensive). The Wisconsin station would be a joint station with the Green line, which would pass through on an upper platform. The station could be partially integrated with the Midwest Express Center or a proposed multi-use tower at Fifth and Wisconsin. After this the Blue Line would swerve onto Fifth Street and run under the freeway, making its next stop at Fifth and Saint Paul (9), the location of the current Amtrak station (and in the near future it may also be the northern terminum of a Metra commuter line). The Blue Line would then turn onto vacant space near the Sixth Street viaduct to cross the Menomonee River and would turn onto Sixth Street itself to meet with the final station at Canal Street (10) that would provide access to the East Menomonee Valley, a place ripe for light industrial and commercial activity.
Green Line Description
The western terminus of the Green Line would be at Miller Park (1), which would also be the site of a park-&-ride lot. From here, the monorail would go down the planned Canal Street western extension to make a stop at 35th and Canal (2). After this it would turn upwards, going along empty land to slowly out of the Menomonee Valley to reach 35th Street again. The next stop would be at 35th and Saint Paul (3), providing access to the Merril Park neighborhood. After this the line would continue going up 35th Street until reaching Wisconsin Avenue. The next stop would be at 27th Street (4), providing access to the Concordia neighborhood. After 21st Street station (5), the next stop would be at Sixteenth and Wisconsin--Marquette University (6). After Marquette, the monorailway would go to a station near Eighth Street (7), servicing Library Hill and the Museum Center. The line would continue to the Fourth Street station (8), where it would make a joint stop with the Blue Line, which would be directly below it. The station would also have a skyway running over it that connects to Grand Avenue Mall and the Federal Building to replace the upper level of a two-story skyway connecting them that would need to be removed to allow the monorail to pass. The Green Line would not make a stop until reaching Water Street (9), across the Milwaukee River. This is within walking distance of City Hall and the Milwaukee Center as well as RiverWalk Way and the BankOne building. The next stop would be at Jackson and Wisconsin (10), which is at walking distance from many banks as well as the Pfister and the "hot" Cathedral Square region (but also far enough away so that it doesn't destroy the ambience during performances there). Next it would run over O'Donnel Park to the intersection of Michigan and Harbor, where a station (11) would provide access to Lakefront attractions such as Summerfest, the Milwaukee Art Museum, and Wisconsin Lake Schooner as well as the O'Donnel Parking lot. The monorail would continue running along Harbor Drive until it goes under IH 794 to meet Buffalo Street. The Green Line monorailway would then run along Buffalo Street until its terminus at a station near at the intersection with Broadway (12), which would provide access to the Historic Third Ward and put ample "Park Once" spaces within reach.
The Freeway monorail would run either in the median or on the edges of freeways with some stretches on arterials. Stations at park-&-ride lots be for express trains, for which passengers would need to pay an higher fare to board (some stations, the oval ones, have platforms for both express and regular service). Express trains, though would travel straight from their origin destination to downtown, skipping all other stations along the way (for the Blue Line, "downtown" is from Martin Luther King Junior and Cherry to Canal and Fifth, while for the Green Line it is from Sixteenth and Wisconsin to Jackson and Wisconsin; like before, the reader may find it convenient to open the image in another window).
Blue Line Description
The start of the Blue Line freeway monorailway would be an extension to Sixth and National, Walker's Point (1), and would then go along Polcyn Street until meeting I-43 in the vicinity of Greenfield Avenue. The next stop would be at the Holt Avenue park-&-ride lot (2), and after this the Blue Line would branch out. One branch would lead to Mitchell International Airport (3), another to the College Avenue and Ryan Road park-&-ride lots (4, 5). These express stations are fairly important due to the fact that they would provide easy access of the monorailway to the citizens of Franklin and Oak Creek, two of the fastest-growing regions in the county. The other branch would reach to 27th Street (6), Loomis park-&-ride (7), 76th Street (8), Southridge Mall (9), and the Layton and Highway 100 park-&-ride (10).
Green Line Description
The freeway Green Line would start at the Green Bay Road park-&-ride lot/express station at Green Bay and Brown Deer, providing access to Brown Deer (1). The line would travel along Brown Deer Road to its next stop at the Brown Deer East park-&-ride lot and express station, providing access to River Hills and Fox Point (2). After this the line would progress down I-43 to a combined express/regular station at Bayshore Mall (3) and would be adjacent to a park-&-ride lot serving the residents of Fox Point, Glendale, and Whitefish Bay. The line would then travel south on Port Washington Road to the Estabrook Business Park in Glendale, where its next regular stop would be (4). The line would turn east on Estabrook Boulevard and then south to a park-&-ride lot off of Capitol Drive (5), providing access for people who would usually turn onto the highway after driving along Capitol. After this the monorailway would go over a bike path that roughly follows the Milwaukee river to its next station/park-&-ride lot near Edgewood Avenue (6), providing access to Shorewood and upper East Side citizens. The line would make its next stop at Hampshire Street, near UWM (8), and after that at Riverside Park (8), near the busy hub of Oakland and Locust. After a stop at North Avenue (9), the monorailway lines would split with the north one going along Prospect and the south one going along Farwell, each with a single-platform station at Brady Street (10). The line would then merge with the downtown Green Line. Despite the fact that this portion of the line is mostly over a bike path, it still serves most that are going downtown by freeway and those that need to take surface streets and arterials to do so, lessening congestion on both. The western segment of the Green Line would join the I-94 after the Miller Park segment and would make stops at Hawley Road (11), 68th Street (12), State Fair Park and park-&-ride lot (13) and the Milwaukee County Zoo (14). After this it would go north on US 45 to make a stop at the Milwaukee County Research Park park-&-ride/station (15). The line would then "jog" over to Mayfair Road (HWY 100) to stop at Mayfair Mall at North Avenue (17) and Burleigh Street (18) before going onto Lovers Lane to turn onto Silver Spring Drive near a station at that intersection (19). The line would then continue to its final station at Timmerman Airport, where a park-&-ride lot would also be situated (20).
Monorail stations would come in two main forms--island (shown here) and parallel. Island stations are placed where land is available between the monorail lines (such as a park-&-ride lot or wide street with a median) and island stations where there is more space beside the monorail lines (such as on a narrower street). The stations will be accessed by escalators and elevators and would therefore be fully accessible to the elderly and disabled. The stations could be covered either in glass or a high tensile strength fabric. In some areas, stations may also be integrated with existing buildings, reducing necessary capital costs. All freestanding stations have already been designed by LMMC, meaning that no money needs to be put into sketching new stations, saving more money.
The monorail would certainly not act alone as a transit system. Rather, it would operate in tandem with a variety of other transit systems such as buses, cars, and rail. Buses would benefit from free transfers with monorail lines and in some areas bus lines would not even be needed. The elimination of certain bus lines or segments of lines with monorailway reduces the amount of wear and tear on buses, lowering the operating costs of the transit system. Transfers from cars would happen at park-&-ride and park once lots, reducing congestion on the highways without extra lanes. Bicycles would be allowed on monorails and there could be racks at stations. Finally, there would be transfers to rail at the Fifth and Saint Paul station, making travel around southeastern Wisconsin and northeastern Illinois more convenient.
The first future additions to the monorailway would not be additional track but road vehicles to help make the system even more accessible. One such road bound service could be a concept known as dial-a-bus. With dial-a-bus, a monorail passenger would call the transit service and would give his or her address, departure time, as well as when he or she expects to be back home. The next morning a bus would take him or her along with other passengers in the area to the nearest monorail station, and would also take them back once the day is done.
Another new way to get from home to station may be to use station cars, which would be docked
at park-&-ride and park once lots. Station cars are small publically-owned electric cars that would be rented out of a station (Honda has also designed a station motorcycle). Station cars would have the advantage of being less expensive to rent than regular cars (this is because electric cars are simpler than conventional ones--an entire station car has as many parts as a regular car's engine) and would only take up garage space when needed. Each station car can also serve more than one person; a suburbanite going to work could rent a station car for the night and drive to to and from the station while a city worker coming off the monorail could rent the station car to get to his or her job in the suburbs.
